


you make me happy when skies are gray

by sherlexa (orphan_account)



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence - Avengers (2012), F/M, Fluff, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 06:52:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15286119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/sherlexa
Summary: The nuclear missile has been sent on its way and Tony is too late to stop it.





	you make me happy when skies are gray

“It's too late,” Fury says but you barely hear him, the ringing in your ears almost louder than the sounds of the battlefield around you, and you let your arm drop, your fingers opening and the phone falling to the ground from hundreds of meters high, sailing through the air, landing on the ground and shattering to pieces with a sound that would seem violent if it wasn't for the chaos already taking place.

 

You look around while the numbness spreads through your body, forcing the anxiety away and replacing it with something that makes you strangely calm.

 

But that feeling doesn't last long.

 

There is a world of destruction surrounding you, buildings collapsing in on themselves, crumbling to pieces like you thought only your heart could. Smoke settles above you, graying out the blues of the sky, the world plunged into a darkness that has you terrified and gasping for breath.

 

“No, don't look,” Pepper says, her hands engulfing your head and turning it around, forcing your gaze away from the city. You haven't noticed her arrival but you suppose she must have given everyone hell to be here at this time, the chaos on the streets stopping the traffic effectively, though you know that there's nothing that can get between Pepper and her determination if she wants something. You meet her eyes and they are calm, collected, but you see the terror anyway, the tremble of her lips, the twitch of her mouth, all tell-tale signs that you had learned while spending most of your life with her. Most of the parts that count, anyway.

 

Pepper has always been the stronger one out of the two of you. Her hands are softer than yours, not covered in scars or callouses but full of gentle skin, easy to the touch, and you remember the way they feel against your body, against your lips. She is easier to look at – there are no sharp smiles on her lips, no grimaces that she faces the entire world with as though every single person deserves nothing but a fake smile or a frown, no false promises in the way her mouth curves when she forms words with precision, always knowing exactly what to say and what not to say. Her exterior has fooled many alike before, usually thinking that she's nothing more than someone standing in your shadow, someone who leans on you instead of the other way around, someone who needs you and that's why she's by your side. But the truth is, she doesn't – she's better on her own, she always has been. She is better in so many ways, stronger in ways the world will never know, and yet she's here with you while the world ends, as if she thinks you're worth her last breaths.

 

There is an honesty to every breath she takes, to every movement of her muscles, screaming of her motives and intentions in ways only few know. She's an open book because that's who she wants to be in the eyes of people who know her, the armor you wear nowhere to be seen, discarded long before the first time you laid eyes on her.

 

You can't help but think that it's funny, ridiculous, that the universe decided for you to fall in love with her and for her to fall in love with you in return, a pair so unbalanced because you _need_ her while she _wants_ you, and it has taken you a long time to get used to the feeling of being wanted after a lifetime of people pushing you away, because you were too much or not enough, always either too full or missing of _something_. But she wants you, and she makes no point of hiding it, she never has. She loves every piece of you, even the ones that you can no longer feel, no longer sense due to having broken so often that they barely even exist anymore. And yet she runs her fingers over the wounds of your soul, her soft skin such a relief against the roughness of your scars, and you know she's stitching them back together, ragged lines and torn open flesh turning into thin white lines, scars that no longer pulse and ache but promise of a healing that you've never thought you'd get.

 

But the world is still ending and no amount of healing can offer you the happy ending you've wanted for the both of you. 

 

Pepper's skin is still soft against yours, her fingers rubbing circles into your temple while she watches you come back to yourself, the hint of a gentle smile on her lips that you know she thinks has no place there because  _the world is ending_ . Despite it all, she stops fighting against it and allows the curve of her lips to form a smile as blinding as the sun, or a thousand suns, because you will never think that a single thing this universe created could ever come close to the brilliance of her, to the masterpiece that you fell in love with.

 

“This isn't your fault,” she says, and it almost sounds like a prayer, pleading and begging you to listen, her tone desperate and steady to show you that there's nothing you could do to change her mind. You want to believe her, your bones are aching under the weight of your past and _you want to believe her_ , but there's already too much blood on your hands, too many mistakes, and this just looks like another one. 

 

But you don't argue with her. These are the last moments you have on earth and she chooses to spend them with you; the least you can offer her is a peaceful ending. You hope she knows it's you saying  _thank you for loving me_ ,  _thank you for being with me_ , and you want to say the words out loud but your tongue has turned to rubber somewhere between Fury's call and this conversation, so all you're left with is this, this quiet sign of your love. You're terrified that it's not enough, that this is another time in your life where you're simply  _not enough_ , but she smiles like she understands and you're at peace again, even though the world is ending. 

 

You can tell she wants to embrace you, hold you in her arms for as long as she can just to feel your skin against hers before everything ends, but she wants to look at you more than she wants to hold you and you're glad about that because there's no way you'd be okay with not keeping your eyes on her beautiful face and the love radiating from her eyes. But the love gets overshadowed by a bone-deep sadness far too quickly and you reach out to brush the tears from her cheeks once they fall from her eyes, her gaze never once leaving yours. 

 

“The others –,” she begins and you nod because you know what she's thinking, _we've found all these incredible people and they are all going to die_ , and suddenly you can't help but think how cruel this world is, even crueler than you've believed it to be so far. They aren't human, not like you and Pepper anyway, and they've spent most of their lives feeling like outsiders because of it, and yet they are objected to the same graceless death as you are, stripped of all their powers in the eye of something that none of them can defeat, that none of them stands a chance against because not even a star-spangled superhero, a green rage monster or a god swinging his otherworldly hammer can stop a nuclear weapon designed for mass destruction.

 

You can't help but hope desperately they know that you never truly hated them, that your attitude was simply a product of a life full of rejections and heartbreak, and Pepper smiles at you sadly while nodding her head almost vigorously in an attempt to make you understand what you know she's about to say,  _they know_ , but you stop her, a finger against her lips while you lean in to touch your forehead against hers, and finally the tears are flowing, their wetness trailing over your cheeks, but you mostly don't even feel it. Suddenly you need to hold Pepper more than you need to look at her and you are too busy trying to breathe through the sobs while holding on to her so tightly that you are afraid you're hurting her, but she doesn't say anything, she simply adjusts to your grip and holds you just as tightly, the faint ache in your skin a welcoming distraction from the violent crumbling of your heart. 

 

And then there's a different kind of desperation taking a hold of you, forcing you to pull back gently to meet Pepper's eyes again, tears still falling from both sets of your eyes, but it doesn't stop the weak smile from gracing your lips as they form a soundless  _I love you_ over and over, like an obsession, something that needs to be said multiple times in order to be perfect, and not even a second passes before she starts whispering it back, but there's no smile on her lips. Her eyes still radiate love and she looks so sad, so broken, and your heart aches at the sight of it because you have never wanted her to feel like this,  _like you_ . 

 

“I love you,” she sobs, and it's quiet in all the chaos surrounding you but you hear her anyway, maybe just because you are desperate to hear it, but you hear it as clearly as if she was shouting it right into your ear, and now there's finally a smile on her lips again, one that isn't as weak as yours but in full bloom, like flowers in the spring, as if she forgot that death is imminent. And you don't correct her, you simply smile back and tell your lips to make it more convincing, to pour all the love into it that you feel for her as you whisper another _I love you_ , and the last thing you see are her moving lips and her warm eyes before there's an echoing sound of a bomb going off and blinding light following straight after.

 


End file.
